Friends or Enemies?
by Mylinda Antoinette
Summary: The story of Janeway and Chakotay after their return to the Alpha quadrant. Couples TBA. I know the summary is very short, but I don't really know what's going to happen yet, so...


Friends… or Enemies?

A Star Trek: Voyager fanfiction by Mylinda Antoinette

Summary: The story of Janeway and Chakotay after their return to the Alpha quadrant. Couples TBA.

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Author's Note: Okay, for once, I'm going to let the story stand alone. All I will say is that my pairings follow one of the two pairing lists on my profile, and that all who review will be listed in the next chapter's dedication. Enjoy!

A/N Supplemental: Okay, I'd like to thank Ilovevoy for alerting me that part of this isn't clear to what I meant. Chakotay didn't date Seven JUST to forget Janeway; he really did think they had a chance at working together as a couple. And just for reference, she doesn't want Chakotay just because he's with Seven; she has always wanted him. She just didn't realize, as many people tend to do, what a good thing she had until it was gone. I have rewritten the offending section in the hopes of making that more clear.

And the next chapter will hopefully be up soon. Season 4 of Voyager is coming to an end and Season 5 is going to start showing soon, so I'll know everything I need. But I still need one more review to do it...

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Prologue:

They started out as enemies.

By all rights, they should have been. He was the commander of a Maquis vessel; she was a high-ranking officer in Starfleet- and the captain of a Starfleet vessel. He had put her best friend in danger; she had been in charge of a mission to capture him. But even worse, they were on opposing sides in which one was part of a resistance movement and was wanted for high treason, and the other was part of the force being opposed and trying to crush that resistance, and all in the name of peace.

You may think you know who the two being described are. You may think the descriptions are those of Commander Chakotay, and Captain Janeway. But truthfully, they are not.

The descriptions are those of Chakotay and Kathryn Janeway, two human beings thrust out into the middle of nowhere where both had to rely on people they held no trust for.

And yet, they managed to pull together.

More than that, they went from being enemies to being something much closer.

Kathryn and Chakotay shared a close bond with each other, a bond that reached beyond the boundaries of friendship. But though both were courageous in battle, and steadfast in the face of extreme danger, willing to put their own lives on the line if it meant saving their crew, neither had the courage to say the three simplest words.

I love you.

That was all that needed to be said, and yet they were both too afraid to say it. In private moments, they could share private and intimate conversations, and they confided things to each other that they wouldn't tell anyone else. On occasion, Kathryn even told Chakotay things that she hid from Tuvok, her closest friend.

In time, each began to realize they had affections for the other. They grew closer still as the years passed, and the hope of reaching home seemed far away. But as time passed, Chakotay began to feel that Kathryn didn't love him. This fear was strengthened when she told him there was no possibility of their having a relationship while aboard Voyager since she needed to spend all of her time getting them home, and she wouldn't be able to give her time to that if she was in a relationship with someone. What he didn't know was that she meant that she didn't want to hurt him by not being able to spend any time with him.

So he began dating Seven of Nine.

Seven was too new to human culture to realize that Chakotay was only trying to make himself forget about Kathryn. But no other women were available, and he knew Seven the best out of all the women on the ship anyway. He really and truly believed that the two of them might have a chance together, since he didn't hold the traditional belief that there is only one right person for everyone, and he did have some feelings for her, though not as much as he had for Kathryn. But his dating Seven had an adverse effect.

Kathryn began to feel that Chakotay didn't love her anymore.

She hid her disappointment and sadness incredibly well, only crying when she was alone in her quarters, even appearing to support Seven and Chakotay as a couple, which, ironically, only made Chakotay feel more like Kathryn didn't love him. After all, she didn't appear to hold any disappointment about his dating another woman.

So he tried even harder to forget.

He began to spend a lot of his time with Seven, during the times that he wasn't on the bridge. The two of them got along with each other very well, and that strengthened his hope that, maybe, someday, he would forget.

But, of course, it was not to be.

Their return to the Alpha quadrant changed everything.

And that… is where our story begins.

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Please R&R! Five reviews before I'll post the next chapter!


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